Richter’s War: Case of the Japanese Alien/Richter’s War: Case of the Lady Crow
Daniel P. Douglas
Geminid Press
There are times when I come across titles that I felt like they deserved a review here on The Scifi and Fantasy Reviewer, but for one reason or another I wasn’t able to dedicate an entire full-length review to them. Sometimes that’s because I just didn’t have the time due to real-life pressures; or, as in this particular case, because this is a review of two short stories where my usual lengthy review would risk spoiling two very good pieces of short fiction. As such – let me give a short but concise review of both Richter’s War: Case of the Japanese Alien and Richter’s War: Case of the Lady Crow – two stories written and published by author Daniel P. Douglas which caught my eye very recently when browsing through the results shown in the increasingly-confusing Amazon Kindle search function.
At the time, I thought that I was looking for new titles published in the niche Alternate History genre, which has long been a guilty pleasure of mine and also a genre that is becoming more fragmented and difficult to search for on Amazon with each passing day. In amongst the AI-generated covers and books from what seemed like every other genre, however, one cover caught my eye – that of Richter’s War: Case of the Japanese Alien. The cover was eye-catching; the title was well-constructed to pique my interest (did it mean alien as in immigration status – or as in extraterrestrial?); and it was available on Kindle Unlimited so I could read it instantly. Taken together, those factors led me to tap that button to download the story; and I’m glad I took the chance, because it introduced me to one of my favourite new literary characters and a new author to follow.
Richter’s War: Case of the Japanese Alien follows Private Investigator Geno Richter in the early years of World War II in the city of Los Angeles, and his adventures working as a freelance agent for the US War Department. Those adventures are primarily focused around locating and hunting down Nazi agents operating in the city – usually through the thorough application of his fists or his trust Colt pistol. But in the aftermath of a bruising encounter with one such agent, Richter finds himself entangled in the events of the infamous night in Los Angeles known as “The Great Los Angeles Air Raid”, when the cities anti-aircraft batteries found themselves engaged in a furious battle against a (non-existent) Japanese air-raid. But as spent shells fall from the sky, Richter finds himself suddenly encountering not only a nest of previously-hidden Nazi agents, but also an alleged Japanese pilot who seems to be suspiciously unrelated to both Japan and the human race as a whole. Richter’s background as a German-American PI makes him a intriguing and sympathetic protagonist; the writing is slick, well-composed and stripped of any extraneous padding; and the action is fast, furious and so well-written that I could feel the punches and subsequent bruises. It was a hugely enjoyable read, and made me jump straight into the following short story in the series.
Richter’s War: Case of the Lady Crow follows on shortly from the events of the previous short story, and opens with the aftermath of a particularly vicious fight between Richter and a Nazi agent, Richter has come out on top, but he can’t figure out why the cut on his head from the Nazi’s blade is in such a weird shape. Unless it wasn’t a blade – and was instead something akin to a crab claw. A crab claw – that was surgically implanted into the Nazi’s wrist? The supernatural themes of the first short story are dialed up a few notches in the second tale, as Richter becomes enmeshed in a desperate attempt to stop a Nazi agent assassinating a Mexican dignitary and causing a fatal blow to US-Mexican relations during a crucial point in the conflict. Once again the action is superbly well-written and Richter a compelling protagonist – and Douglas does more work in developing wartime Los Angeles as a background to the story, which only makes the story more appealing.
Richter’s War: Case of the Japanese Alien and Richter’s War: Case of the Lady Crow are two of the best pieces of alternate history/supernatural history short fiction that I’ve read in quite some time. Well-written, action-packed and featuring a protagonist I’d like to see more of in the future, they tickled a part of my brain that rarely gets touched these days; and bonus points for featuring supernatural elements that aren’t obviously Lovecraftian in nature, which is a rarity these days. I cannot recommend them enough to those interested in supernatural and/or historical fiction, and I’ll now be diving into the next in the series – the full-length novel Richter’s War: Case of the Ghostly Séance which I’m genuinely excited to read.
The Sci-Fi and Fantasy Reviewer 